Rouge.
"That's right men, put up the flag. We are no longer the lone-star state, but the lone-star ship!" Captain Johnson bellowed in a frenzy.
The ship's red phone began to ring.
"No. No, we are not coming back from this tour - You can call us Pirates if you want to. No. We will not come back, we are tired of this war. We are tired of these living conditions. And most of all, my men are tired of this food. I will not listen to reason."
Captain Johnson was cut off by the distant rumbling of a torpedo...
"Don't you realize you can make a cake WITHOUT any the products of my femininity?" asked the chicken. She fluffed her feathers defiantly, shouting over the cars that zoomed mere inches from where she had taken her stance. "That is that last time anyone takes my eggs! I will NOT provide my children for your tasty treats!" She glared at the little girl.
Darla stared at the hefty bird. She adjusted her apron, dusting off some flour with one gloved hand. "I needed eggs for my mother's birthday cake!" she protested. Darting a glance at the heavy traffic, she...
He opened the letter from his cousin, reluctantly breaking open the blue air-mail envelope. Who uses old-fashioned snail mail these days? It was from Cat, of course. His good-for-nothing lay-a-bout drop=out relative who had adopted a ridiculous animal name and gone off to live on an remote island in the West Indies. Practically a desert island. No email there, of course.
Meanwhile, people like himself, sensible people with ambitions and mortgages, had to eke out a living in London, or Sydney, or Rome. Wherever he could. And that is hard when you are a classical musician - a violinist -...
Thank God the image was blurred thought Johnston looking over his daughter's shoulder. She had accidentally found his photo folder, the one he thought had been deleted.
'Daddy, who's that lady?'
'No one sweetie.'
He clicked away and back onto the screen with the cartoons ignoring Joanna's 'but Daddy..........' and turning up the sound. Soon everything was forgotten and she was begging her dad to be allowed to see 'just one more' before bedtime, even though he'd already agreed it was way past her bedtime ten minutes ago.
After she was finally tucked up in bed and gently snoring (sinus...
I waited on the corner of Drake Street and Something. I shielded my eyes from the bright gray to see the paintings on the panes.
I waited a few feet from the corner of Drake Street and Something and could not see the rain puddles hug the curbs in passing.
I waited on the wrong corner of Drake Street. We all waited on the wrong corner of Drake Street. It was so quiet on the right street, we could have heard a pin drop into a rain puddle and rush ahead of us into the future.
I waited on the...
We were on a quest to find the Black Rose. It was the only thing which could be used to defeat Francis.
Cold, hungry, and lost in the forest, we stopped for some rest.
"Marchiel, what's our plan?". Miriam asked me.
"At first light, we travel to Moundenchow. I know someone there who can help us. Get some rest.", I answered
Dawn rose, and we were on our way to Moundenchow.
We met my friend at a tavern, and he directed us to the mantle above the fireplace. There it was. The Black Rose. It had been secreted in this...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
Trivia. They say Native Americans, and other native people of the World, believed photographs stole their soul, the marrow of their being. It comes up a lot in clever White people films and books, when they want to show Savages and Locals as ignorant and superstitious.
Actually, it is probably more true of the early photographers themselves, breathing Mercury fumes, day in day out, in producing their metal plate dageurotypes. The toxin building up, destroying the marrow in their bones, until they quickly faded as much in Life and Strength as their pictures eventually did. Easy pickings they were.
I...
What's this?
Dad showed me the picture of the orangutan splayed on the grass.
A monkey, I said.
It's you, he said.
Neither of us laughed.
Remember that time you asked me for a Coke and I stood at the soda machine filling it with Root Beer imagining Homer Simpson saying Mmmmm Root Beer?
Dad laughed.
I laughed.
It's silent most of the time now. I don't think to text and neither does he.
"Clung to" means everyone in the house knowing when I am there and when I am not. A friend is dropping off some cookies she made...
"Hello" Beth said.
"Howdy!" Jacob beamed.
That was it. The same greeting they swapped every afternoon as he strolled into the building. Beth gazed at him from the reception desk as he strolled past, holding her eyes steady with the cockiest of smirks.
He knew she wanted him. She want him like they all did, only she was cute enough to maybe consider. She had that dirty-librarian look about her.
Beth watched the man continue through the lobby, leering at her. She smiled her best at him, but really saw her knife plunging into his mouth and out the back...